Why Do People Shoot up Schools? Because They Believe the Same Thing You Do

How’s that for a provocative title? I did my best.

It’s a new year, a new month, a new atrocity. Yet another individual decided to take the lives of as many of his fellow men as he could, consequences be damned. Not him be damned. Because damnation is not a thing. Which I guess means the consequences won’t be damned, either.

Why could such a travesty occur? Because gun are available?

Why would such a travesty occur? Because the killer insane?

How could such a travesty occur? Because of depression? Because of psychotropic drugs?

No.

It is because he believed what he was told his whole life. Because believed what we told him.

It is because there is no meaning to his life. Because we are not bearers of the image of God. Because we are just the descendents of bacteria which crawled out of the primordial ooz. Smarter, sure, but what does that matter? God doesn’t exist. Fate doesn’t even exist. Just time and chance acting on matter. Goodness doesn’t exist. It’s just a social construct. We are here, but there is no purpose. The empty blackness of the void looms before us. We will join it someday. It will be as though we never existed. We will be only a memory of those who still crawl the earth, until they too join the void. Until they join the nothingness. Until they join the despair that is not to be despairing, but not to be.

This is what he was taught. He believed it. He internalized it.

Time and chance, acting upon matter. Some people are good looking, and rich, and have friends. Not me. Just the dirty trick of the cosmos. I will avenge myself against the universe. I will destroy. I will take happiness from others, as it was denied to me. I will make them feel my anguish. My emptiness. My dispair.

Why were mass shootings not a thing 30 years ago?

The AR-15 was invented in 1956. Why didn’t shootings start then?

What was the god of the system in 1956? In 1956, the god of the system was the echo of a Christian morality. In 1956, the memory of the Christian West was too recent. People still had Christian presuppositions in their bones. They stood only on the cusp of the void, they had not drunk it. They had not become it.

The god of the system is chaos. The god of the system is pain. The god of the system is the darkness of the void. The god of the system is me, and I am the chaos, and the pain, and the void.

Do we want to end violence, or do we want to end violence against the innocent? Hopefully the latter. Even the American Left thinks the police should have guns, that they should wield the sword on behalf of justice. Even the British Left thinks the police should have clubs, to bludgeon the wicked into submission.

Do we want to end violence, or do we want to end gun violence? If you want to end gun violence, you can probably do it by ending access to guns. But you cannot end violence. Not with laws. People will use cars. Over the past few years, that has proved more effective than anyone had previously imagined. People  will use knives. Knives kill more people than guns every year. People will use bombs and aeroplanes. Those have proven effective. People will use fists. Fists cannot be taken away.  At least not easily. But they might try it in Qatar.

If you want to end violence, you have to change the philosophy. You have to change the way people think about who they are, who God is, who they are in relation to other human beings. You have to change people.

The God of the System needs to be One who punishes unrighteousness. One who is great in power, slow to anger, and who will by no means clear the guilty. Because to be found guilty means there is a standard. And to have a standard means to have an authority. And the only authority who could establish such a standard must be God.

Why the Cubs Need to Lose the World Series for the Good of Baseball

Well, the grand spectacle that is 2016 is finally winding down. It’s been a year in which we’ve already become used to reading about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton battling each other for the presidency, or roving gangs of clowns terrorizing the streets of America’s cities, so perhaps it should come as no surprise to us that the Chicago Cubs and the Cleveland Indians should be playing each other in the World Series.

 By any measure, that’s historic.  The Cubs, famously, have not won a World Series championship since 1908. To put this into perspective, the last time the cubs won a World Series, a Roosevelt was president, and his first name was not Franklin. The Cubs haven’t so much as won the pennant since 1945. And while the Indian’s World Series drought isn’t as notable, it’s still one of the longest in baseball. While Cleveland has been in a World Series as recently as 1998, they haven’t won one since 1948.  

It is, therefore, perhaps understandable that many people are excited. Despite the fact that the Indians have been waiting almost seventy years for a World Series, swaths of the population are, predictably enough, rallying behind the Cubs, who last won a series title twenty years before the invention of sliced bread.  Perusing the interwebs, one stumbles upon the usual sappy stories: “Woman Born Before 1908 Hoping for Cups Victory.” It couldn’t very well be someone who actually remembers any of the games, because no such person exists. People want to witness history. People want a win for the team that always loses. People want Chicago’s team to have their year of glory at last.

People are wrong. 

For the good of baseball—for the good of America—the Cubs need to lose. Why? There are several reasons, but they can be reduced to this: a victorious Cubs team makes baseball a less beautiful game.

There are teams that haven’t won a World Series in a long time. And then there are the Cubs. Life in 1908 often seems so distant from our own era. It was a life before World Wars, before talking or color in movies, before music on vinyl record became all the rage. But in terms of baseball, it is, if anything, even farther removed. 1908 was right smack in the middle of what is known as the dead-ball era. During this time, baseballs were much softer, as the cork-centered baseball of today wasn’t even invented until 1909, and subsequently did not travel as far. Baseballs were used until they literally fell apart, further decreasing the distance a batter could drive one. Moreover, pitches like the spitball, which were incredibly difficult to hit, were still legal, making it quite a feat to make contact at all. 1908 in particular was the lowest scoring season in the history of baseball, and the last time the Cubs won it all. They used a different, ball, different strategies, and different rules. The modern game begins around 1920, which means that the Cubs have never won a World Series playing baseball as we know it today. 

As much as it will pain the city of Chicago, and the legions of fair weather fans (not that the Cubs usually enjoy that much fair weather) rooting them on, the Cubs need to lose for the good of baseball as a whole. Baseball is a sport with lots of history, and lots of tradition. One of the most beloved of these traditions is giving the Cubs grief for being the team that hasn’t won a World Series in eternity, and they must persevere stoically in that role. It is their lot in life.

In baseball as in everything, there is a story being told, and where there is a story there must be characters. The Yankees are the villains, as everyone will agree. They wear the crisp black and white uniforms, have more money than they know what to do with, boast a legion of obnoxious fans, and they win constantly. That’s their role, and New Yorkers are okay with that. The Dodgers are the scrappy underdogs. They win against all odds, and also lose against all odds. They’re good, but not too good; they sometimes pull it out in the end, and sometimes not. They’re all heart and all thumbs. The Giants are their antagonists, and the Angels are their sidekicks.

And the Cubs? The Cubs are the perpetual losers. They never win, they’re never good, but their city loves them any way. Cubs fans love the Cubbies just the way they are, which, admittedly, is quite more than can be reasonably asked of anyone, but they do. And a Cubs victory will spoil all that.

We need the stories of the Cubs never winning. We need stories of the curse of the Babe. These are the things which make baseball great. When The Bambino's curse was broken in 2004, Boston celebrated. But Baseball lost a bit of its luster.

Not everyone wins. Not every team has their turn in the limelight. Not everyone goes home with a trophy. You just suck it up, cause there’s no crying in baseball. If the Cubs were to win a World Series, it ought to be as the underdog, not as the clear favorite, a hot team with one of the best records in baseball. They may win yet, and Chicago will celebrate. But baseball will be a little less special next year.

11 O'Clock (Or There Abouts)

A book and whiskey late at night
Perhaps a wee pipe I shall light
And think deep thoughts
And drink deep droughts
Before, at last, I snuff the lights
And say a prayer
Push in my chair
And bid the world a fond 'goodnight.''

St.George and the Crocodile: Being a Discourse on How Some People Have All the Luck

Circa 1630 A.D., a crocodile which was kept for kicks in the Court of Charles I of England, slipped out of its cage and, breathing deep the sweet air of freedom, slithered into the dark English woods and disappeared. That is, until it skulked out of the forest and ventured into the small town of Wormingford where it terrorized the local peasantry who, reasonably enough, concluded that the scaly, green monster was a dragon.

At the same time at which the good folke of Wormingford were vexed thus sorely, it so happened that a Knight errant by the name of Sir George Marney of Layer de la Haye, happened to be traversing through the countryside, and was beseeched by the good people to aid them against this unholy menace. The noble Knight at once agreed, and having pledged the valour of his heart and strength of his arm in defense of the village, commenced mortal combat with the monstrous serpent.

St George and the . . . Crocodile?

Pitched battle was engaged betwixt the stalwart Knight, clad in bright armor with trusty lance, and the foul fiend with fangs bared and murder in its bloodshot eyes. Our valiant hero tipped his sturdy lance, and, spurring his worthy steed, charged full-tilt at his foe. There was a furious clash!—A horses bray!—A hellish howl from the demon!—And Lo!—the seed of the woman had crushed the serpents head!

Elated by victory, our chivalrous Knight cantered round the dragon, lying now quite dead in dust and blood, and lifted the visor of his helmet to wipe the sweat from his noble brow. The peasants thronged their worthy deliverer with shouts of adoration and gratitude. But our hero snapped his visor shut, and, plying his golden spurs to the flanks of his gallant mount, soon disappeared into the rugged countryside.

The tale which I have related is no work of fiction—Faith! It is history, true and sure! Indeed, the town of Wormingford boasts of the tale to this day, even claiming the origin of the St. George mythology, though their story is about thirteen hundred years too late. 

My friends, have not some all the luck in this world? What shouldst thou give?—troth—I wouldst give every penny that ever I earned—to have been a Knight wandering through the countryside when a village needed rescuing from a stray crocodile! It is true, one can purchase Alligator tags for $25 in Louisiana. But no one will hail you as hero and deliverer for bagging one with a shotgun. Give me a steed, a lance, and an escaped carnivorous amphibian in Renaissance Europe, and I, too, shall be a hero sung by the wandering minstrels and bards! But Alas! Deeds of heroism, of song and legend, are more difficult to come by in this age of modernity.

So here’s a toast to Sir George Marney of Layer de la Haye! Raise a glass with me, noble gentlemen, to the heroes who were in the right place at the right time. Hear! Hear!

Some people have all the luck . . . 

Thanksgiving: Let's Party Like it's 1621

Human creatures can be notoriously ungrateful. Often, we think we would be grateful if only we had more than we do. If we had more money, or different families, or better health or looks or cars or what have you, we would surely be appreciative of our blessings. This is routinely disproved by reality. The poor, hungry man is immensely thankful for a scrap of bread or a cup of soup, while the rich man picks contemptuously at his lobster. Ah, but Thanksgiving Day gives us the perfect opportunity to at least pretend to be thankful for the good things we have been given (or, for the naturalist, the things which Chaos and Old Night have been pleased to spit our way at random. How does Thanksgiving dinner go down for those chappies, anyway?), even if we're tremendously ungrateful the rest of the year.

Friends, we’re Bing Crosby. You know, in that one scene from Holiday Inn? Wait, you don’t know? Well, go, watch it, and sin no more! Anyway, Bing sits down on Thanksgiving to eat a whole turkey by himself. He’s feeling mighty blue, because his buddy Fred Astaire stole his girl (again). It’s a great scene: Bing puts on a record of himself singing “I’ve Got Plenty to be Thankful For” and mocks his own song while he eats. “Are you kidding? Like what?” he asks his recorded self. He then criticizes, “you’re a little flat, too.” Turning to the turkey on the platter in front of him he says, “You know, you’re better off than I am!” The movie is on YouTube. The Thanksgiving scene is near the end, around the 1:48:00 mark. You can thank me later. 

The Bing on the record has something of the right idea; Bing on camera with his turkey sounds more like us a lot of times. Or maybe Bing and I are the only ones who sometimes want to trade places with roasted turkeys? No, I refuse to believe that.

Every schoolchild knows the story of the first Thanksgiving. Or at least, they know whatever version of it is being shilled in the schools these days. Anyway, what were the Pilgrims thankful for? Not starving to death, for one. When the happy story of Pilgrims and Indians sitting down for a thanksgiving feast gets told, what often gets left out is the bit about the brutal, bitter winter those Pilgrims had just endured. They had arrived at Plymouth in late 1620, just weeks before winter. That first winter claimed the lives of half of them. Of the original one hundred pilgrims, only fifty survived until that First Thanksgiving in the fall of 1621 (see, half. I told you I could do the maths). They had all lost family members, friends, colleagues. One hundred is a pretty small, tightknit group, and it goes without saying losing half in less than a year must have been unimaginably devastating and heart-wrenching.

Above: Mayflower Passengers
Below: Those who survived until the first Thanksgiving

Life was hard. It’s hard now still. But for most of us, not quite that hard.

Edward Winslow, one of the Plymouth colonists, wrote:

"Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruits of our labor. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which we brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty."

They rejoiced. They feasted. They thanked Almighty God for His providence, for providing for them, for granting them the abundance of their first harvest, and most importantly, for granting them the freedom from the impositions of the Church of England, and the ability to worship God according to His Word, as their consciences convicted them.

Friends, have we not as much for which to be thankful? Have we not more? Life itself is a gift. Every breath we breathe is a gift from God. Let us gather with friends and family, and rejoice as William Bradford and Plymouth did so many years ago. Let our hearts overflow with gratitude to the Lord, and with Christian charity towards one another.

“O give thanks unto the LORD, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.”

Let’s party like it's 1621.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends! 

Don't Say "Might as Well"

I closed the door of the Range Rover and strode towards the door of the dilapidated gas station, the one all my friends avoid because they think they’ll get robbed. Some of us are made of sterner stuff, and fear not such things. As it is, I myself now avoid this particular gas station as well, but my reasons for so doing, rather than being fearfully motivated, have to do with the idea that perhaps an establishment as shady as this one can’t necessarily be trusted to dispense a gallon when a gallon is purchased. But I digress.

At least they know what they want . . . 

I pulled my cream fedora down farther onto my brow, straightening my tie as I stepped over the threshold. The other patrons wore stained tank-tops and baggy jeans around their knees, and they looked at me as though I were from Mars. I am not from Mars. I took my place in line behind another customer. He was short, unshaven, wearing faded, concrete-spattered denim, and he was purchasing two 40 oz. cans of Bud Light. As he set them down of the counter, the clerk tried to make some small talk. “Oooooooh,” she said. “Looks like you’re going to party tonight, eh?”

Now, Bud Light isn’t really my idea of a party, but we’ll let that one slide. The man half nodded, half shrugged, and replied, “Might as well!”

I was taken aback, not by these words, but by my reaction to them, which was rather extraordinarily Baptist-y. Now, as a Reformed Baptist I am not opposed to alcohol as such. In fact, it would be a stretch of the truth to describe me as anything other than whole-heartedly in favor. The Lord’s Supper is celebrated with wine, which is no accident. The Israelites were commanded to celebrate with “strong drink,” a kind of ancient beer. The Apostle tells us to “test the spirits,” and I always oblige. (That’s a joke, people. Lighten up a bit, what?). Which is to say that I was altogether surprised to find myself begrudging (ever so slightly, mind you) this fellow his beer. However, I also have a fairly well established philosophy concerning how alcohol is and is not to be used, and it was this sensibility of mine which was offended. It was the shrug and the phrase might as well that raised my Scandinavian eyebrows. Friends, never say "might as well." Don't think it either.

Initially, I suspected my knee-jerk displeasure was merely a reaction against cheap alcohol. Confessedly, I have some not-so-slight inclinations towards snobbery. I want to enjoy alcohol if I drink it, which means that the alcohol needs to be enjoyable; id est the drink in question ought to be one of quality. But this is only a small part of the matter. While I might not enjoy a typical American pilsner (e.g. Budweiser or Coors) as much as a craft ale or an imperial stout, I have to concede that this is a matter of preference. That beverages ought to be enjoyable does not speak to the fact that others enjoy different things than I.

No, but alcohol is to be enjoyed. It is celebratory. Wine is the perfect accompaniment for a fine meal. A jolly evening with friends should include porter and stout and ale. Scotch is the drink you should choose for a quiet evening with a pipe and book. Warm brandy comforts the body and sooths the soul when you have the flu. But these beverages are not to be enjoyed for the sake of the alcohol they contain, nor is alcohol to be used for the purpose of becoming drunk. They are to be enjoyed because they are delicious. If you buy cheap alcohol because you enjoy it, well and good. By all means, let me not stop you. But if you buy the cheapest beer you can find because you are using the beer as a delivery mechanism for alcohol and nothing else, this ought not to be.

Now, if you’re downing two 40 oz. cans of Bud Light because you “might as well,” this raises the obvious question: Might you, then, just as well not? If you are only drinking because you can’t think of anything else to do, I beg to differ, sir. You might better use that money on your wife and family, or on clothes or food or shelter or charity (some might make this argument regardless of the reasoning behind the purchase of the alcohol, but for my purposes here I will conveniently forget that such arguments exist. In the mean time, I shall simply point you to John 12:3-7 and assume that my point is made).

If you are enjoying a beer because you are with old friends and are having a roaring good time, I am with you. If you want a mug of the frosty brew because you have toiled all day in the hot sun and wish to be refreshed, I shall gladly buy the first round. But if you’re drinking “cause, like, why not, like, you know?” then I suggest you repent, quit drifting through life as though it were one of the less exciting rides at Disneyland,  and develop the fine and manly qualities of tenacity and assertiveness.

I have used the example of alcohol, but I wish to illustrate a far broader point. Whatever we do, or say, or think, it should be done purposefully. An action might be neutral in and of itself, but no action is neutral when placed in the context of real life. Do you eat or sleep or read a book or go to the gym? These are neutral actions. But at present, you either should or should not be doing them. Are you playing the violin? Well and good if you are practicing for a symphony, but woe to you if you are watching Rome burn. Do not say “might as well.” Act purposefully, or refrain from acting, also purposefully. “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”

Doctor Who, Doctor Schaeffer, and Christianity Today

Every once in a while Christianity Today gets it in their minds to publish something. Worse still, every so often I actually read what they publish, and then I get annoyed when it turns out to be hogwash. I quite understand that Christianity Today is writing for the broader evangelical audience, including (unfortunately) those more liberal elements, so I can’t really complain when they publish things which I think very wrongminded. But it’s when they publish something that is just plain silly that I start scratching my head and wondering how the editors ever let this sort of thing in their magazine.

So, a couple weeks back, they published a piece in the “her.meneutics” (not my doing, don’t blame me) section about the wildly popular English Sci-Fi show Doctor Who. I read it, mostly because I actually like Doctor Who, but I was very disappointed by the article. Fast forward a bit, and I was reading some Francis Shaeffer, when something he said reminded me of that article, so I figured it was time to bust out the old ink and vellum, and here we are.

If you were eagerly anticipating a post in which I nerd out over Doctor Who, I’m afraid this might not be fun for you.

I’m not going to argue that Christians can’t watch or like Doctor Who. It’s fun, and funny, and exciting, and clever, if sometimes downright corny. There are certainly worse things on TV these days, and Doctor Who is relatively benign. But, as with all art, it is the product of a certain worldview and as such it is based on certain presuppositions. If a Christian decides to watch it, fine, but he should do so knowing where the show's writers are coming from, and he can then enjoy that which is fun, and dismiss that which is heathen. What we mustn’t do is pretend that it espouses a Christian worldview when it clearly doesn’t (and I say this as one who has given Charlie Daniels’ Devil Went Down to Georgia a rigorous treatment as theological allegory).

Here’s a quote from the article:

The concept of the show involves Christian symbolism; the series reboot gets referred to as a “resurrection” and each new Doctor an “incarnation.” As the central character, he’s a mysterious and powerful hero who travels through space to earth (and across the universe) to help and save . . . Theologian fans use the Doctor’s stories to contextualize the gospel with small group studies on how the sonic screwdriver is mightier than the sword or how we are both inside and outside of time.

Right. Except it’s not Christian symbolism. These are words which have relevance to Christianity, yes, but in context they are completely divorced from any sort of Christian meaning. Implicit in this paragraph is that the Doctor is portrayed almost as a type of Christ. Now, we have such types in Scripture. Moses and David typify Christ. I will be so generous as to assume that the author is not intending to reduce Christ to “a mysterious and powerful hero who travels through space to earth (and across the universe) to help and save.”  I was going to pass over the sonic screwdriver is mightier than the sword bit, but it’s really bugging me, so I shan’t. “The pen is mightier than the sword” is a phrase coined in 1839 by Edward Bulwer-Lytton for a stage-play, so why exactly we’re adapting it to Doctor Who and designing small group studies around it is frankly beyond me. If Solomon had said it that would be one thing, but alas, he did not. As old Leonidas would say, much to the point, elsewhere.

Also, we’re not “both inside and outside of time.” Like, at all. We’re inside time. God is outside of time. God, the creator, is outside of time, and we, the creation, are in time, where he placed us. Right? Right. What do they teach in these schools!

The real problem here, however, is that the Doctor personally, and the show generally, espouse a cosmology that is very un-Christian. It is naturalistic in its presuppositions and existential in its philosophy. Far from promoting Christian ideas, the thrust of the show’s philosophy is an attempt to take a strictly naturalistic cosmology and somehow derive meaning and value from it.

C.S. Lewis once gave a lecture called Is Theology Poetry? in which he considered the argument that Christianity is merely poetic in the same way that Greek or Norse mythology is, and that this is the attraction to it. In the course of his argument, he also considers the poetic merit of evolutionary naturalism, which he compares favorably to a good Elizabethan tragedy: against all odds, life emerges from the primordial goo, against all odds it develops over millions of years. We see the caveman, mastering fire, striving with the elements and with beasts much stronger than he. We see the emergence of modern man, using brain rather than brawn, subduing nature. But then, the universe runs down, and man is powerless to stop it. After emerging the conqueror against all odds, man finally succumbs, with everything else, to nature.  

Lewis remarks that such a narrative deserves a better treatment than it’s gotten. Doctor Who endeavors to give it just such a treatment. Through the Doctor’s travels, we are shown the beginnings of the universe, human history across the ages, great advanced civilizations, and then, finally, the very end of the universe, as time itself runs out, and the remnants of humanity struggle against the inevitable, seeking to hold out as long as possible before everything breaks down and there is nothing left except darkness and silence and nothingness.

Where do we find meaning in such a futile universe? The nihilist rightly concludes that there can be none. But Doctor Who is crafted around the desire to snatch meaning from the jaws of futility. How? In the chance of it all. In one season Seven episode, the Doctor is trying to talk a young girl out of sacrificing her life, saying:

Hey, do you mind if I tell you a story? One you might not have heard. All the elements in your body were forged many, many millions of years ago in the heart of a far-away star that exploded and died. That explosion scattered those elements across the desolations of deep space. After so, so many millions of years these elements came together to form new stars and new planets. And on and on it went. The elements came together and burst apart forming shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings. Until, eventually, they came together to make you. You are unique in the universe. There is only one Mary Galel and there will never be another. Getting rid of that existence isn't a sacrifice, it is a waste!

Meaning is thus to be gleaned from the extraordinary unlikelihood of existence, the temporary nature of life, and the uniqueness of each person. The chance and futility of it all is part of the beauty. Indeed, the writers of Doctor Who have done an admirable job of making their cosmology seem attractive.

The problem is that Doctor Who is fantasy, and the sense of meaning propounded by its philosophy is also fantasy. It lasts just about as long as the music continues to swell. When credits roll and the orchestra clears out, so do the bubbly feelings. Glorying in one’s random uniqueness is all well and good until one is actually standing face to face with the real world, and finds that there is no screwdriver-wielding hero to set things right. Such a random universe is, at its core, futile, and, as the nihilist properly concludes, totally meaningless. “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”

Entre Shaeffer. I’m going to quote him at length, but it’s well worth reading the whole quote. If I could write like Shaeffer, I would, and then you wouldn’t have to bother.

The two alternatives are very clear cut. Either there is a personal beginning to everything or one has what the impersonal throws us by chance out of the time sequence. The fact that the second alternative may be veiled by connotation words makes no difference. The words used by Eastern Pantheism; the new theological words such as Tilich’s ‘Ground of Being’; the secular shift from mass to energy or motion, all eventually come back to the impersonal, plus time, plus chance. If this is really the only answer to man’s personality, then personality is no more than an illusion, a kind of sick joke which no amount of semantic juggling will alter. Only some form of mystic jump will allow us to accept that personality comes from impersonality . . . No one has presented an idea, let alone demonstrated it to be feasible, to explain how the impersonal beginning, plus time, plus chance, can give personality. We are distracted by a flourish of endless words, and lo, personality has appeared out of a hat! This is the water rising above its source.  No one in all the history of humanistic rationalistic thought has found a solution. As a result, either the thinker must say man is dead, because personality is a mirage; or else he must hang reason on a hook outside the door and cross the threshold into the leap of faith which is the new level of despair (The God Who is There, 88). 

Got that? Doctor Who presents us with a random, impersonal universe. This presents us with the dilemma outlined by Schaeffer, and the Doctor’s solution is the latter option, to ignore the fact that this system doesn't allow for meaning or rationality or personality, and to continue on as though it did. It is the philosophical equivalent of knocking back half a bottle of Smirnoff and pretending your troubles don’t exist. 

For the Christian, on the other hand, there is an actual basis for meaning. There is an actual source for personality. The Christian is not condemned to the futile exercise of attempting to squeeze purpose out of randomness, for he worships a God of order. The Christian is not subject to futility, for God works all things together for good.

My turn to tell a story. You may have heard it, but it bears repeating: the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.